Bannon asked Ryun about celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred’s involvement in the Roy Moore case, representing a woman who accuses Moore of assaulting her in 1977 when she was 16 years old.

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Ryan said Allred is “basically a human vulture when you look back at some of the things she’s been involved in.”

“Remember the incident with Arnold Schwarzenegger?” Ryun asked. “She brought all these women in front of him, said they’re going to sue, they’re going to file suit against Schwarzenegger. Guess what? After the election, absolutely nothing happened.”

“I think a real turning point was that press conference when they pulled out the yearbook and the signature,” he said of Allred’s entry into the Moore controversy, referring to an interview with MSNBC’s Katy Tur where Allred did not come off well.

Ryun said this interview demonstrated that the best way to respond to sensational allegations is to “just throw facts back at them.”

“I’m remembering clearly, you remember this, the incident where I just brought up the Clinton Foundation, Uranium One. This is back in the spring. Couldn’t believe the reaction,” he said.

“Back to Alabama, we were talking in the break about this poll. This is John Kerry’s pollster who did this poll that just came out recently,” Ryun said, referring to a Fox News poll that showed Democrat Doug Jones with an eight-point lead over Republican Roy Moore.

“Because John Kerry’s pollster has an agreement with the other company, Schoen Company, which is Karl Rove’s,” Kassam replied.

Ryun cited an observation the late Christopher Hitchens made in 1992, that “polls these days are not made to truly understand public opinion, but they’re meant to shape public opinion; they’re used as a weapon now.”

(As Kassam pointed out, Hitchens’ poetic way of phrasing this was to say that “opinion polling was born out of a struggle not to discover the public mind, but to master it,” and, in particular, to develop a weapon against organized-labor populism.)

“Pull all the Band-Aids off in D.C., and I think that at the end of the day, you’re going to see some things that will undermine the corrupt consultant class as the Band-Aids get ripped off on this,” Ryun predicted. “I think people need to start asking about behavior at the party committees. It’s time that we actually say, ‘Let’s have an honest conversation, a wide variety of thoughts.’”

Bannon interpreted this to mean that Ryun was accusing the D.C. “consultant class” of concealing a good deal of inappropriate behavior toward women.

“That’s what I am implying,” Ryun replied. “I think this might, ultimately, even though there are going to be some interesting moments moving forward, I think this will be a good thing for the populist movement.”

Ryun said there was no doubt in his mind that the allegations against Moore were part of an “organized hit,” as Bannon put it.

“I’ve been in D.C. almost 20 years. And, again, I don’t have hard proof, and I will say this clearly: I do not have hard proof, but I strongly suspect it’s a very short list of people, all who are associated with Mitch McConnell – whether it’s Josh Holmes, whether it’s Karl Rove, might even be Steven Law – I don’t know, but I strongly, strongly suspect somebody out of the McConnell camp planted the story.”

“It was planted. This came with the blessing of Mitch McConnell at some point, that he was going to take a political shot at Roy Moore,” he declared.

Bannon asked for Ryun’s thoughts on Restoration Weekend and his role as a presenter at the event.

“It’s so important. You bring together just some great people – obviously yourself, Raheem; you’re going to have Congressman Devin Nunes as the keynote speaker. You’ll be speaking, I know, later today,” Ryun replied. “It’s just great where people come from all over the country, spend three days together, be able to interact with people like you and like Devin Nunes.”

“I’m really excited to introduce Congressman Nunes,” he added. “He has been the rock star on unmasking Fusion. So I’m excited to be here. He’s a rising star. Keep an eye on him. You know, the thing is, he took it on the chin this spring. They were going after him, undermining his credibility. He didn’t stop.”